Tuesday, 5 February 2019

Out of the frying pan...

The Victims’ Commissioner, Baroness Newlove
reported last month in damning terms on the performance of the Criminal
Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA).

The headnote on her Twitter page @VictimsComm
says that “survivors of violent and sexual crime are being retraumatized by the
CICA and left alienated and frustrated”. That’s a terrible indictment of an
organisation that was set up to fill a gap so often left by shortcomings of the
criminal courts, loopholes in the civil law and the impecuniosity of many
perpetrators.

The report appears to identify unnecessary
demands for information and the withholding of compensation on arbitrary
grounds.It is plainly wrong, but sadly
it is nothing new.

The case that always sticks in my mind is that
of a young matelot stationed at Yeovilton a number of years ago.He was violently assaulted by a nightclub
doorman during a “run ashore” in Chesterfield one Saturday evening.

Yes, he drank probably more than he should have
done and might otherwise not have been quite so persistent in his attempts to
persuade the dinner-suited sentinels that he should be allowed the opportunity
to keep the party going.

But nothing he did could justify the actions of
the bouncer who pushed the rest of his patient colleagues to one side and
landed a punch that laid our young serviceman out cold on the pavement.He cracked his head on the kerb as he landed,
lost consciousness and subsequently lost interest in a promising, well paid and
secure career in the Navy.

Expert evidence from a consultant psychiatrist
established that the change in our client’s psychological state was probably
caused by the head injury he suffered as a result of the unlawful assault that
evening.

On first application, he was awarded the
princely sum of £6,000.The only thing
that was clear was that the award was insufficient.

So we appealed and eventually a new award was
made.This time it was zero.

Some bright spark got hold of the file and
noted that the final chapter of the demise in our young man’s naval career was
a spell of military correction at
Colchesterbarracks. This was incorrectly viewed as a term
of imprisonment equivalent to a sentence imposed by a criminal court and on
that basis the applicant was deemed unfit to receive compensation.

When after approximately five years we finally
dragged it to an appeal half-way up the country, a capable tribunal decided
that the appropriate award was of a sum approximately 25 times the original
award.Result.

Even net of the substantial costs that were
inevitably incurred in this unnecessarily long journey, our client was left
with a sum of money sufficient to buy himself a house and give him a real start
in a new career outside the Navy. It demonstrated to me, though, the terrible
flaws in the system which were only overcome by a great deal of persistence and
doggedness on the part of all the good guys.

This, unfortunately, is so often the face of
“administrative justice”.Anybody who
has dealt with some of the ombudsman services which are so called created to
provide Joe Public with affordable justice will understand the frustration.

There’s a sense that these bodies are there to
draw in the unsuspecting hopefuls whose enthusiasm and will to live is then
broken by what seems to be a mission only to protect the fund or those who
might in theory be ordered to part with some money.

The route to redress is often limited, or
virtually non-existent and where there is a chance to appeal, it’s a long and
rocky road. As this latest inspection shows, things just get worse when they
should get better.

For so many unfortunates who were persuaded to
go it alone – that they didn’t need ‘expensive’ lawyers – it’s a journey out of
the frying pan into the fire.

It isn’t good enough.Well done to Baroness Newlove for carrying a
torch.I hope the consequences of her
report are a much-needed reform of the CICA.

I hope also that it will foster a recognition
that many of these organisations, which members of the public are encouraged to
use on the ticket that they don’t need the assistance of a lawyer, are often
traps for the unwary to be cheated and maltreated and left feeling that they
wished they had never bothered.